Samuel Johnson: The Arc of the Pendulum

Freya Johnston and Lynda Mugglestone

Abstract

In 1819, William Hazlitt condemned Samuel Johnson's prose style as ‘a species of rhyming’ in which ‘the close of the period follows as mechanically as the oscillation of a pendulum, the sense is balanced with the sound.’ Predictable, formulaic, and unresponsive, Hazlitt's Johnson was a ‘complete balance-master,’ incapable of latitude and compromise, a mere automaton who rebounded from one position to its opposite extreme. Johnson, Hazlitt argued, ‘never encourages hope, but he counteracts it by fear; he never elicits a truth, but he suggests some objection in answer to it.’ This volume sets ou ... More

In 1819, William Hazlitt condemned Samuel Johnson's prose style as ‘a species of rhyming’ in which ‘the close of the period follows as mechanically as the oscillation of a pendulum, the sense is balanced with the sound.’ Predictable, formulaic, and unresponsive, Hazlitt's Johnson was a ‘complete balance-master,’ incapable of latitude and compromise, a mere automaton who rebounded from one position to its opposite extreme. Johnson, Hazlitt argued, ‘never encourages hope, but he counteracts it by fear; he never elicits a truth, but he suggests some objection in answer to it.’ This volume sets out to challenges Hazlitt's influential reading of the Johnsonian pendulum in a variety of ways. Rather than being trapped within a set of oppositions, Johnson emerges from these chapters as a writer who engages imaginatively and vigorously with flux, dynamism, and inconclusiveness. Johnson's life and writings embody the critical and creative play of ideas, a form of interaction with the world which is shaped by instability, contradiction, and combat. On the one hand, ‘Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed;’ on the other, ‘To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.’ Individual chapters present new perspectives on Johnson's work, life, and reception, addressing questions of style, authority, language, lexicography, and biography across a range of writings from the early poetry to the late prose.

David Fairer

Howard D. Weinbrot

End Matter

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